One Thing

Last week a friend's grandparent's house burnt to the ground.  Fortunately, everyone made it out alive, but her grandpa suffered some burns and has a long road of recovery ahead of him. 

Yesterday, there was a house fire down the road from us.  It got me thinking, if I could only save one thing from our house (THING, not person) then what would it be?  I posed this question to my Twitter followers and here are a few of the answers:

@PNWrancher - cell phone to call friends for place to stay or computer w/ all my docs on it maybe.

@kernelle - scrapbooks, hands down

@McGuireJJ - An old worn, scratched, tootsie roll Remington 870.

@AndyFFSI - Great-grandmas silverware. When she bought it in the 1920s, it was the ultimate decadence for a poor farmwife.

It's really hard for me to pick the ONE thing I would save. Most things are just that, things.  Material objects that can be replaced.  A few items hold a pretty special place in my heart though: 

Pictures of course.  A lot of them we have backed up, but not all.  And I know in years to come I would miss having those pictures to conjur up memories.

An emerald ring my great-grandmother gave to me (I was born on Mother's Day, which also happened to fall on her birthday that year; this is who we named Monkey after).

My wedding ring.  Yes, we could replace it, but it would never be THE ring that JC put on my finger the day we wed.

A Curious George stuffed animal.  It was one of the first gifts given to me as a baby and I've held on to it for over 30 years.  I want to give it to Monkey when she's a little older and able to take care of it.    

I'm sure there are other things that I would be devastated to lose, but these really stick out to me.  It's amazing how the things that hold the most value to one person, have little to no value to another. 

What about you? What is the one thing that you would want to save if your house was on fire today?